Spirited Home
by Lady Daja-chan
Summary: HumanWorld people contract a strange illness! Chihiro has visions about and feels pulled to a place that can't possibly exist! She'll return to SpiritWorld to find they have their own problems, especially Haku. In end, which will she save? Love, or hate?
1. Prolouge

Chihiro sighed as she looked out of her classroom window. 'Two more hours until lunch. . . but I want to go home so badly. . .' Not that there was anything for her there. After her mother had been diagnosed and died of an unidentifiable disease, her father had become a workaholic. He was hardly ever at home anymore; the last time she'd seen him had been months ago. 'Dad. . .' Chihiro sighed and turned back to the front of the room.

The teacher was still going over the two-week field trip that mostly her entire class was going on. She had already heard about this trip a million times, and it was boring her. Besides, it's not like she was going anyway. Why would she? She had no friends. She didn't fit in at school, no matter how hard she tried. There was always someone there to pick on her, usually Asumi and her friends.

Chihiro, whose seat was in the back corner of her classroom, scratched behind her ear as she desperately tried to stay awake. The desk to the right of Chihiro was empty, whose occupant, having the same curious disease that her mother had contracted, was not at school very often because of the illness.

Chihiro lay her head down on her arms, knowing that the teacher wouldn't be able to see her sleep behind Asumi, who sat in front of her. Asumi was too busy chattering with her friends about the field trip to make fun of Chihiro. Chihiro yawned behind Asumi, her mouth growing too large to be covered by the hand that she had placed to do so.

A wad of paper flew and hit the side of a dazed Chihiro's head. She jerked up, looking in the direction that the paper had come from. A boy her age, with light brown hair and black eyes, grinned at her and nodded to the paper ball. 'Kiro? What could he possibly want?' She leaned down and retrieved the ball from the floor. Opening it, she read, 'STAY AWAKE, BEAUTIFUL'. She glared over at Kiro, who was still grinning cheekily. She scowled at him.

Asumi, remembering that she hadn't yet given Chihiro her daily taunting, swung around in her seat. She noticed the direction in which the girl's gaze was directed and frowned deeply. "What're you looking at," Asumi hissed, "Don't be looking at my man like that." She looked down at the note in Chihiro's hand, then back up at her face. "Give me THAT." She snatched the note out Chihiro's hand. Her eyes quickly skimmed the message. She looked up and sneered at Chihiro disgustedly, "This is OBVIOUSLY MINE." She looked over at Kiro and sent him a sourly over-sweet smile that he had evident trouble returning. Asumi gave Chihiro one last glare before swiveling around in her desk.

Chihiro rolled her eyes and reapplied her attention to the beautiful scenery outside the window. The trees' branches swayed gently in the wind, undaunted by the chirping birds perched on several of their branches. The sun shone down in a way that made everything look so bright and heavenly, that the whole scene reminded her of happiness. The epiphany of happiness.

The bell finally rung, and Chihiro was all too happy to get out of class. She waited as Asumi walked up the aisle deliberately slowly, just to annoy Chihiro. However, when Asumi looked back, she was upset to find that Chihiro wasn't even finished packing her things away yet. She huffily exited the room.

"Chihiro," the teacher called over her shoulder, "just close the door when you leave." He walked out of the door and left Chihiro alone in the room.

Chihiro sat in the back of the classroom, barely able to move. She was usually the first to have her things ready to leave, but today, she was the last left in the room. Hadn't anyone noticed? The woozy, cloudy feeling that was incapacitating her came upon her full force once more. White-ish orange spots began to clot over her vision. She had begun to sweat through her clothes, but then the pain was suddenly gone and she was back to normal.

She slowly packed her things away, wary of being overtaken by the feeling again. She hurried out of the classroom, nearly slamming the door as she went. She couldn't go to lunch and risk that happening again. She had to go home. She wanted to, anyway, and it was all the more reason for her to leave school if she was sick. She wasn't sure she would have made it through the day with her sanity anyway.

She checked out of school in the nurses' office and started to walk to the bus stop on the corner. As she walked by the windows to the cafeteria, something pulled at her to glance inside. She looked up, and seconds later, so did Asumi. Both jumped in surprise, and Chihiro's hand flew to her mouth. After a while, Asumi just scowled, shrugged, and turned back to her friends, laughing again.

Chihiro continued to leave the school, even though she was beginning to feel like her normal self. 'I'll still go home, just in case,' she thought, shifting her book-bag onto her alternate shoulder as she waited at a bus-stop. She scratched at an itch in her left side, delicately keeping her balance with her bag. She looked over at the old man sitting on the bus-stop's bench. He was really creeping her out. He looked so old that he could have been her great grandfather, yet he wasn't bent at all. Even his wrinkles had mini-folds of their own, still his bright sapphire eyes shone out like glowing quartz in a cave. He slowly started to turn his head to look at Chihiro, and she nervously jerked her gaze back in front of her.

Chihiro could feel the old man's stare. Her hair had gradually begun to stand on end from the strange feeling that it gave her: like ice down her shirt. Chihiro saw a big, bright white bus thundering down the street, and watched as it quickly approached. When it screeched to a stop in front of the stop, the breeze from the momentum of the bus sweetly ruffled Chihiro's hair, whipping it softly around her face. She flinched in surprise as she could have almost sworn that she had heard a faint whisper in that soft wind. She shook her head to get rid of the glazed look in her eyes, and looked over at the doors to the bus just in time to see the old man disappear through them. Slowly, as though deliberately waiting, the doors screeched closed with a final snap when it closed.

Chihiro sighed with relief as she watched the bus move smoothly away, leaving the normal exhaust stench in its wake. The feeling of the old man's gaze lingered, and she shivered, tugging her bag into a more secure position on her shoulder. She glanced over at where the old man had been, and shivered again. Noticing the absence of his 'creepy' aura in the area, she trudged smilingly over to the bench and plopped down. She exhaled loudly, all of her previous tension going out with her breath. 'What was with that old man?. . . and that wind, what was that I heard?' Just thinking about the soft voice she'd heard in the wind gave her a pleasant feeling of homesickness.

Suddenly, she felt the homesickness turn to longing. Longing to go. . . somewhere. She couldn't quite grasp the information as she was bombarded with images. 'A place, from a dream. . . a long time ago. . .' She turned her head as she heard another bus coming down the lane. She looked down at her silver watch, 'That's my bus.' As she walked onto the bus and the driver took her money she chose a seat closest to the front as possible. She lay her head against the cool glass window and sighed lightly, relaxing as she drifted to sleep.

Some time later, the bus apparently had to travel down a bumpy road, because she awoke as her head banged on the window from the turbulence. "Umph. . ." she muttered, bringing a hand up to hold the back of her head. She straightened and peered over the top of the rubber covered seat. All she saw was darkness and bright, blurred lights as the bus sped down the lane. 'Now that I think about it, I don't think he's going the speed limit.' As if on cue, the bus slowed to a more normal pace.

"Miss," the gruff voice of the bus driver sounded a little dazed, if not confused, "I believe this is your stop." She looked up at him, surprised, then out of the front window. She was even more shocked to realize that it was her stop. How had he known? "Er, thank you sir. . ." she trailed off as she began gathering her things.

The bus hummed under her feet as she gathered her bag and purse. She hopped down the bus steps. "Goodbye, Chihiro," the driver said softly. She turned around swiftly to ask how he knew her name, but the doors had already closed and he was no longer looking in her direction.

'How did he know my name?' She jumped as she remembered something, and glanced down at her front. In a clear pocket over her right breast, her school I.D. winked up at her. She felt like slapping her forehead, but laughed at herself instead, and began walking up the path to her house. She paused as she passed the large field of shrines, and a soft, fragrant wind blew past her. She breathed in deeply. The wind smelled of spring, and slightly of an ocean.

'There aren't any beaches around here. . .' Chihiro mused, not putting much thought into the anomaly. Suddenly she felt that soft pull on her again. It pulled at something deep inside of her, buried; pulled like a string around her heart. She shook herself out of a daze and smiled lightly. She was having a crazy day.

She unlocked the front door, and walked into her house. Not that this was ever home. 'Just a house,' she thought sadly.

"Dad?" She yelled, checking to see if her father was home; it couldn't hurt. No response. So, he was still at work; it wasn't like she had really been expecting him to be home anyway.

She ran upstairs to do her homework. Halfway through, her stomach growled. After it emitted a few more grunts a few minutes later, she couldn't take it anymore.

She headed downstairs to get something to eat. She grabbed her snack and was about to head back upstairs, when the singing of birds caught her attention. She turned to look out of the sunshine filled window.

'Today is too pretty of a day to be feeling sick. . .' she smirked as the thought flitted through her mind. With the sun overhead, she didn't feel like staying in the house, but it was safest. Afterall, what if she collapsed in the woods? She wasn't feeling all _THAT _well; she'd felt better. Still, it was such a nice day outside, and she had adopted an odd, uneasy feeling since she'd come home, and it only kept increasing. 'A feeling of being trapped. . .' She stared blankly at the door from the last step.

Surely it couldn't hurt much?

She grabbed her favorite green windbreaker, so she wouldn't be cold. Even though she was still in her school uniform, she didn't stop to change into something more comfortable. She checked her ponytail, brushing it and rewrapping her favorite ponytail holder around it. She grabbed her wallet and keys, shoving both into the large pockets of her jacket.

She exited the house, locking the door behind her, after she'd left a note on the counter for her father. She'd vaguely wondered beforehand if he'd even see it, but she'd left it anyway.

She climbed down the path from her house, the small shrines catching her eye again. The images began to come at her again, and she shook her head to rid her of the thoughts. It wasn't that she was upset by the thoughts, quite the opposite. But they shared with her a dream-world that could never be, and left her wanting more. She mentally shook her head at herself. She couldn't have more of something that wasn't even real. They always came upon her like memories, but that was impossible, because she couldn't be remembering something that didn't exist. 'The dreams are beautiful, but I don't want to desire something that I could never have,' she thought, walking up the rising stone path.

The path that she was walking became rougher. The wild trees of the forest surrounding it crowded in on the road and their branches hung down in her face. The stones of the path jutted up, revealing bright wild grasses and flowers beneath them.

She started to have doubts: 'Maybe I should go back.' However, she kept walking.

Chihiro almost walked right past a statue with a haunting smile upon its face. She stopped for a second or two to stare at it. She decided that she wouldn't have minded much if she HAD walked right past it. It gave her the creeps, and a shiver passed through her body. 'Kind of like that old man,' she said, comparing the sensations.

Chihiro continued to ascend the route absentmindedly. She finally came to a clearing, which shocked her out of her deep thinking. The forest separated to both sides, and there was a round clearing, paved with stone. The patch of stone was an introduction to the door of a tunnel that led the way into darkness. There was a stone figure in front of the doorway, identical to the one that she'd passed earlier. 'If it was possible, I would've rather not have seen either one,' she mused.

Against her better judgment, she walked through the doorway. She was surprised to see that right after she walked in, she could see the other end of the tunnel, blinding with bright light. She walked through the tunnel as quickly as possible, coming out into a dome shaped room. With its benches and high windows, it looked like either a church or a train station.

'No, it's a train station,' something in the back of her mind told her reflexively. 'How would I know?' she asked herself, but continued walking until she was out into the sunshine. She leaned on the building to regain some of the energy she'd used up walking all the way out there. She didn't even want to think about the walk back. As she pushed off the wall, she noticed that it didn't feel much like an outside wall, but more like- "Plaster?"

With that one word, all of her memories of Spirit World came back. She tried to suppress them, but they were rebelling, tired of being restrained. She feel to the ground and with the last of her conscious mind, thought determinedly, 'I'm coming. . .Haku, Kamaji, Lin, Granny, Bou, No Face. I'm coming.' The last image before her eyes was that of a young boy with dark hair, pale skin, and entrancingly clear, bright green eyes, "Good. I'll be waiting."

So, what did you think? Was it okay? This is my first Spirited Away fic, and my first fanfic in a long time, so please, bear with me, and R&R!

_LD-chan_


	2. Chapter 1

_**Yubaba,**_

**_I'm done with my mission. I am returning shortly. I will stop by Zeniba's and check on the No-Face. I should be to the bathhouse in the morn, if not by nightfall._**

Usumu

Yubaba folded the letter carefully and tucked it away in her drawer. So, two were coming? It would be an adventure to have two old faces back in the bath house. All that she had to do was wait.

And she HATED waiting.

Yubaba stood and glanced out of her window, before ringing a bell. A few seconds later, the toad foreman stepped solemnly through her door. "You called for me?" "Yes," she said returning to her desk, "I want you to welcome 'Sen' and bring her to me at once." The foreman's eyes widened. '_Chihiro?'_ "She will be needing to sign her _contract_." She glanced up to see a still shocked foreman in front of her. "Go!" she yelled, "I'm a _busy_ woman."

The foreman scrambled to stand and half-skittered, half-fell, out of Yubaba's office, but as soon as he was out of her sight, he sprinted through the bathhouse and down the steps to the river.

Sen! Master Haku was going to see his Chihiro again! And after 7 long years, would he be pleased? . . . He ran down the steps as he thought about the time. '_Mistress Sen: how much she will have grown by now. . . '_

The toad-ish man stood wringing his pale hands at the foot of the bridge, his big eyes frantically searching for a human child. 'Well, she wouldn't still be a small, thin human brat, would she?' he thought. Humans changed quickly over brief amounts of time like that.

He bent over to scratch at his leg, the dryness of his skin irritating him. Little droplets of sweat dripped down his forehead due to both the humidity and the effort he had to exert to reach around his rounded stomach.

A strong, cold wind blew him to a standing position and almost over backwards. So, his lord Haku had returned. . . He lifted his gaze to the bath-house just in time to catch to tail end of a pearl colored dragon body whipping into a top-floor window, teal mane combed through by fierce fingers of wind.

'Oh, Master. . . your human. . . will you still be pleased with her?' A fearsome query, indeed. Also his mistress had sent for her first. What did Yubaba want with her? Nothing good, he deduced.

A funny scent tickled his nose. A very human scent. He started, previously large eyes widening to assume to appearance of shiny bug-eyes. During all his pondering, he had forgotten that he was indeed waiting for someone!

The foreman heard a small noise to his left, and instinctually, his head snapped in that direction… only to come face to face with—well, face to _breast_ with—

The foreman looked upwards to find the face on Chihiro's towering form. He 'gawp!'ed and pulled away slowly, trying to get his blush under control after he had come eye-level with her _more rounded_ attributes. He grinned widely up at her and saw that she was slightly blushing as well.

"Hello, foreman," Chihiro said, awed, "You're exactly the same as I remember you! Albeit a little shorter." "Yes, Miss Sen," he said, taking her wrist and beginning to lead her across the bridge. "Where are you taking me?" Chihiro asked. "I'm not sure that I am supposed to tell you, but," he replied timidly, leading her up the steps, "my lady and mistress, Yubaba, has sent for you upon your arrival." "Yubaba!" He glanced back at her, "Yes. You remember enough not to ask why, do you not?" Chihiro nodded, "I remember CLEARLY." She giggled nervously. 'What could Yubaba want with me already? Nothing good, that's for sure. Probably wants to kick me out. . . but I'm not going, NO MATTER WHAT SHE SAYS!'

As they entered the bathhouse, the workers stopped and stared for a moment in surprise, then, with a few yelled orders and complaints from her escort, the bustle began anew. The foreman led her through the hall to the small elevator, all the while debating whether he should take her straight to his mistress, or rather, to Master Haku.

"Uh, foreman," Chihiro looked up at him once they were aboard the elevator and going up. "Yes," he turned to look up at her. Height was also something she had acquired in her time back in the human world. "Are you really taking me to see Yubaba? Won't you get in trouble?" Her worry for him was etched into every line of her face. It made him uncomfortable that she would care so much. "No, Miss Chihiro! She sent me personally to come fetch you, and make certain that you would not become lost on your way to see her," the frog man hurriedly reassured her to clear her worries. 'Chihiro? Since when has he started calling me that? Oh, well, whatever.'

"Oh," Chihiro said, straightening and shifting her gaze to the colorful scenes flashing before her as the lift rose. There were so many bright colors that her eyesight began to blur. The floors were covered with so many bright colors, and it seemed as if they were all blending together, trying to make her woozy.

She squeezed her eyes closed tightly as her fear of heights rammed into her. Her eyes were beginning to tear with the hard pressure she was putting on her lids. The foreman smelled her tears and looked up, thinking she was crying because she was afraid of the impending meeting with his mistress, "Don't worry, Mistress Chihiro, I'm sure everything will be alright." Chihiro nodded, caught up in her fear, trying to convince herself of what the man beside her was saying to her was true. She had begun chanting them in her head when she realized the full content of his words. '_Mistress_ Chihiro? Where did that come from? He sounded _barely _comfortable with just 'Miss Chihiro'.'

She slowly opened her eyes into narrow slits to glance down and ask him what he meant by that, but the elevator came to a firm halt. "Miss Chihiro, we must move to another lift; this one will not carry us any higher. As they walked across the bridge over a floor of open baths, her eyes widened as she looked down at all of the strange looking customers being served. It seemed as though every step she took would bring her past an even more intriguing spirit, and her eyes would widen further still. By the time they had reached the lift on the opposite half of the room, she felt that she would never be able to properly close her eyes again.

As the foreman led her into the elevator across the bridge, Chihiro caught sight of a familiar spirit serving on the floor below. _'Rin!'_ Chihiro's heart beat faster as her mind raced. Unbeknownst to her, a brilliant smile lit on her face. Scenes of what their reunion could be like sped through her mind.

The lift door slid closed, and Chihiro's heart clenched. The fear of what was about to possibly happen to her in Yubaba's office caught up with her, and she began to panic. She no longer noticed the heights to which the lift was reaching, and she no longer noticed the fidgeting frog-man beside her. 'What _will_ Yubaba do to me? Maybe willingly coming with the foreman was not such a good idea…' Chihiro began to wring her hands, 'Okay, so… I'll bolt as soon as the elevator stops. Oh, _wait_… _I don't know where to go_…'

The swift stop of the lift felt like the beheading blow of an axe to Chihiro. 'Oh, come on,' she scolded herself, 'you're over-dramatizing this…' The lift's door slid open once more and the two stepped out into the dark hallway. "Miss Chihiro, are you alright? You've fallen silent for quite a while…' "I'm fine," she replied, but the shake in her voice was so clearly pronounced that she almost winced. However, the foreman only nodded.

Approaching the ornate door to Yubaba's wing, the foreman firmly grasped the knocker and rapped softly on the door. "Louder, you imbecile! I can hardly hear that!" Chihiro watched a visible shiver run up the toad's body. Wringing her hands, Chihiro audibly swallowed and took a deep breath to calm herself.

"Well, toad—Send her in! I can't wait all day!" The booming, harsh voice quickly diminished the calm Chihiro had forced herself into. The toad stuttered and stammered, unable to get his trembling tongue to speak steadily as he turned to Chihiro, "W-well… I g-guess th-that's a-all I'm n-needed for… See ya!" With that, the foreman sprinted down the hall as fast as his short, fat legs could carry him and skidded into the elevator.

Chihiro watched the toad's scene, but only when the sharp 'ding!' of the lift sounded did her mind fully understand that she had been left alone… with the devil herself. "Well, COME IN!" Yubaba's stern voice commanded through her tastelessly colored doors. Chihiro felt a sharp tug on her front as the many doors through Yubaba's domain slammed open. She was dragged even less gracefully than she remembered through the long hall, her knees scraping the floor.

Chihiro tumbled into Yubaba's office as the witch's magic none-too-gently released her. Chihiro groaned as she slowly gathered her limbs to herself and began to stand, trying to steady herself after her abrupt change in motion.

Chihiro stood and looked around. There was no fire in the fireplace, and the shades on the windows were opened to show the many lights coming to life in the darkening market below. There were random pieces of non-matching furniture at odd places in the room, save for the chair before the fireplace. Yubaba's desk looked cluttered and chaotic, so unlike the large woman reclining behind it.

"So…" Yubaba took a long drag of her cigarette and looked at Chihiro from the corners of her eyes. As she released the smoke from her lungs, the vision of the young woman standing nervously before her became clouded in a whiff of smoke. "You're back. After so long…"

The witch drew out her words in a way that Chihiro was not sure if that was a rhetorical question. "Um, y-yes," Chihiro failed to keep her voice steady, and inwardly berated herself for the show of weakness before the intimidating witch. "Hmmm…" was all the response she got for a moment, then, "Well, I hope you haven't come to me wanting a _job_…"

'WHAT!' Chihiro's mind went up in flames, as did her face and expression. All fearful respect for the witch before her went out the window, and Chihiro's fists clenched. "What do you mean, "Come here wanting a job"? You summoned me!"

Yubaba turned to fully face the girl before her, scrutinizing her through a narrow glare. "Don't you yell at me, you little brat," she spat. Yubaba seemed to pull in the reins after her statement. This was not going how she had planned. "Now, I called you here because I knew that you would come to me, _wanting a job_," she stressed, "and I wanted to tell you 'no', before you wasted all your energy sneaking around with scum to try to get up here."

Chihiro could tell by the tone of Yubaba's voice that she had not figured out who had helped the girl her previous time in the Spirit realm, and she held back a smirk at the thought that Yubaba was irked by that.

"What makes you think I'd even _want_ a job from you, Yubaba? News flash—I don't." Yubaba's newly calmed face erupted into an angry scowl once more, and her thundering voice bellowed across the room at Chihiro, "Why you stupid girl! Don't you know that you can't stay here without a job! I'll show you, you ungrateful brat, I swear by all the gods—"

"Are you quite done yet?" Chihiro's sharp, clipped voice interrupted her rant. Yubaba's violently red face fumed, accentuated by the fiery setting sun behind her. "Because," Chihiro continued, "Since I do in fact know that I need a purpose to remain here, and you have already so _skillfully_ declined to give me one, there are other places in which I need to search for a job." With her newly found courage, Chihiro haughtily turned up her nose, and away from the witch like a spoiled child.

Yubaba could not restrain herself any longer. The whole room, bathed in red sunlight, was not helping her to keep her rage under wraps; it was fueling it. And directly in the center of the blood-bathed room the object of her rage. Wind whipped around Yubaba's form as she rose into the air and hurtled toward Chihiro, ready to inflict pain upon the girl with not only her magic, but her fists.

Chihiro's eyes went wide as small saucers. 'Maybe I went too far…?' Her courage had completely deserted her in the eye of the storm and her fear was the only emotion that she had left within her, and it shone through her eyes. As Yubaba charged toward her, Chihiro found that her panicked body would not move. She scrunched her eyes closed and stood completely still, awaiting Yubaba's punishment.

Yubaba, remembering her plans in the nick of time, halted millimeters before the motionless girl, fist still raised to Chihiro's face. Although Yubaba had been able to halt before beating the insolent girl, rage still consumed her being.

She struck Chihiro soundly across the face.

Chihiro's eyes flashed open. 'How _dare_ she—_how **dare** she!_' Chihiro was not sure what she had been expecting Yubaba to do, but the thought that the witch had slapped her was too much!

Chihiro's eyes snapped open to see Yubaba calmly sitting at her desk once more. "You bi—" "Now," the witch stated calmly, "I've changed my mind. Sign this." A contract rose up on a non-existent breeze, along with a quill, and drifted over to Chihiro. Chihiro's shock overrode her anger for a moment as she plucked the quill from the air and signed her name on the indicated line.

As the signed contract and quill floated away from her, all feeling came back to Chihiro. She felt as if she had just signed her death warrant.

"You will be given clothes and a futon with the other workers. I expect not one toe out of line, you hear me?" Yubaba said, raising her hand to a serving bell and ringing it. Seconds later, a non-descript lady-worker in a pink uniform hurried into the room. "Take this girl and get her clothes and a room."

The woman in pink could not fully conceal her disgust at being burdened with this human, and a heavy scowl crept upon her face. Yubaba sighed heavily, and mumbled to herself, so that the room's other occupants would not hear, "I'll be glad when I stop having to deal with such low-lives and my assistant returns. Damn them all…"

But Chihiro heard. 'Assistant? Is Haku still her assistant? Was he unable to get away? What did that witch _do_ to him? Where _is_ Haku?'

Before she could ask any questions aloud, however, the woman exited the room through a door that she had not seen before. Chihiro obediently followed the woman through the doorway.

Chihiro was suddenly met with such a blast of night wind that she had to fight to stay upright. Apparently the door led to an outside stairway. Chihiro felt all of her burdens, worries, and ill feelings torn away from her by the swift breeze, leaving only a restless contentment inside her. Chihiro grinned at the feeling and imagined what a mess her hair must look.

Unbeknownst to Yubaba, Chihiro, and the worker, a certain dragon had chosen just that moment to step out onto his balcony and draw comfort from the calmingly fragrant night breeze. He sank unto a comfortable bench that faced the plains surrounding the train tracks.

Haku lifted his feet to rest them on the opposite armrest of the bench. He sighed deeply in comfort, his brilliant green eyes closing for a moment in restful bliss. He stretched and yawned, and then opened his eyes half-mast.

Lazily glancing around, he happened to look over to a staircase hugging the wall and saw movement. His eyes snapped fully open.

Haku leapt to his feet. There she was! The girl that had haunted his dreams for the past several years! "My Chihiro…" he whispered to himself, gazing at the grinning young woman standing before him. _And. . . oh my. . . she HAS grown. . ._

Ha ha ha! Naughty Haku thoughts always fun! Sowwie about the much delayedness of the update. Story not dead! Story NOT dead! Just a little comatose, maybe…

_LD-chan_


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